An excellent post. (I make a related point in this old comment about the famous “three mathematicians walk into a bar” joke.)
EDIT: Also, it’s worth noting that another way to put the point mentioned in this paragraph—
Now, let’s assume that this really happens and you are trying to figure out the meaning of your friend’s words. The first thing is that you would be really surprised: this is not how humans normally convey information.
—is that, in order to interpret the speaker’s words in the way that is required in order to get the “right” answer to the puzzle, one must ignore the Gricean maxims (i.e., assume that the speaker is not following the “cooperative principle”). But doing so in ordinary human communication is, of course, irrational…
An excellent post. (I make a related point in this old comment about the famous “three mathematicians walk into a bar” joke.)
EDIT: Also, it’s worth noting that another way to put the point mentioned in this paragraph—
—is that, in order to interpret the speaker’s words in the way that is required in order to get the “right” answer to the puzzle, one must ignore the Gricean maxims (i.e., assume that the speaker is not following the “cooperative principle”). But doing so in ordinary human communication is, of course, irrational…